Subtitles of the Movie

One of the options you have with your Drafting Settings in AutoCAD 2009 and also AutoCAD 2010 is the ability to switch from Buttons to Icons. So, let's have a look now at our Drafting Settings at the bottom of the screen. We have SNAP, GRID, ORTHO, POLAR, Object Snap, Object Snap Tracking, Dynamic UCS, Dynamic Input, Lineweight, and also Quick Properties. Now you can see there that I have Buttons with letters on them telling me what my Drafting Settings are. If I right-click over any of those Drafting Settings you'll see that I get a Shortcut Menu, and on every Shortcut Menu I should get this Use Icons option. It's quite a useful tool if you want to free up a bit of real estate on your Status Bar. If I click Use Icons you'll notice now that it's Icon-driven rather than Buttons with words on. Now, I like being able to see what I'm clicking on, so I like to be able to see OSNAP and OTRACK. Some people, though, like to use their Icons, like so, so you can see there, Polar Tracking, Object Snap Ð they're still there, but they're just driven by Icons. So you can see that I can switch them on and off like that, I can switch ORTHO on by clicking on it, and that switches ORTHO on, you can see ORTHO on there, on the Command Line. If I click on POLAR Ð you can't have ORTHO and POLAR on at the same time, so you'll see ORTHO goes off, POLAR goes on again. So you can see that you can use those Icons quite easily. If I now right-click on any of the Icons and click on the Use Icons option here, it puts them back to the Buttons with the words on, which is a throw-back to older versions of AutoCAD. Now, something else that I really, really like within the Status Bar, within the Drafting Settings, is when you're looking at Object Snap. Now, what I'm going to do, I'm just going to quickly draw a rectangle on the screen here, like so, I'm just going to draw it free hand. I just want some corners to snap to and some midpoints to snap to, so that I can draw some lines. Now, if I right-click over OSNAP here, it's also Icon-driven, because I can switch on my Object Snap, so I can just switch them on and off with a single click. I don't have to keep going into Settings here and going, oh, which one do I tick? Which one don't I tick? What I do is, I go down to OSNAP, I right-click, and it's all there on the Shortcut Menu. So, what I'm going to do here I'm going to switch Midpoint off by clicking on it once; I'm going to right-click over OSNAP again, and click on Endpoint as well to switch it off. Now, both of those are now switched off in my running Object Snap Modes, so, if I go to the Line Command now and hover over here I'll still get an intersection because those two lines intersect, however I won't get a midpoint. Look, it's not there. There's no Midpoint Snap. So, I go down to OSNAP Ð I'm in the Command now, remember Ð right-click, Endpoint. I can now draw a line from that Endpoint to that Endpoint and press Enter to confirm. I might want to right-click and repeat that line on the Shortcut Menu there, click on that corner and Point Snap, click on that corner Endpoint Snap, and Enter to finish. Now, I might want to draw some more lines now, only vertically and horizontally, so I go to the Line Command again and again it's Icon-driven so I right-click over OSNAP, click on the Midpoint Icon here, and as you can see Midpoint to Midpoint, Enter to finish, right-click, repeat line, Midpoint to Midpoint, and Enter to finish. So, as you can see, down here on the Status Bar if I right-click and select Use Icons it converts it to Icons. If I right-click over an Icon and click on Use Icons to untick it, you'll see that it goes back to the older Buttons with the words on them. So, as you can see you can customize your Status Bar Workspace there to allow you to have either setting, and also with your OSNAP it's a right-click now and it's a one-stop shop. It's one click, to switch your Object Snaps on or off.